The Star has hired St. Louis Post-Dispatch sportswriter Vahe Gregorian as a sports columnist. Vahe (pronounced VAH-hey) will cover all aspects of the local and national sports scene, from the Chiefs and Royals to college athletics and beyond.

Also joining The Star’s newsroom is Gregorian’s wife, Cindy Billhartz Gregorian, who will be The Star’s new House + Home editor and write and edit for the Features sections. She spent the last 16 years at the Post-Dispatch.

“Cindy and I are honored by this wonderful opportunity to work for The Star and get to know Kansas City in a way I never would have imagined when I first ventured there for the 1988 NCAA title game at Kemper Arena,” Gregorian said. “We will always be grateful to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and it’s painful to move away from so many dear friends and talented, caring colleagues.

“But we relish the fresh challenges of our new jobs, the chance to work directly with terrific people we’ve known and admired for years and the excitement of getting to be part of another tremendous community and excellent newspaper.”

A University of Pennsylvania alum, Gregorian joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1988 as part of a graduate-school internship program after receiving a master’s in journalism at Missouri. He is currently assigned to the Post-Dispatch’s Mizzou beat.

In the last 25 years, all at the Post-Dispatch, Gregorian has reported from nine Olympics, twice as many Final Fours and about 25 bowl games. His work has been published in The Best American Sports Writing and honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors, Football Writers Association of America and Missouri Press Association.

In 2000, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a story he wrote on an Olympian who was traumatized by winning a silver medal after decades of striving for gold. In 2003-04, he completed a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan with an emphasis on history and the demise of sportsmanship.

“We’re thrilled to add such a seasoned journalist to our Sports Daily lineup,” said Jeff Rosen, The Star’s assistant managing editor/sports. “Beyond his impressive professional accolades, Vahe is known as a man of impeccable character, thoughtful intelligence and simple kindness, caring and grace.

Vahe was a wide receiver at Penn. Which says a lot about Ivy League football.

Eh. There's good players that come out of Ivy schools.

I'm not a big college football person until after January but it seems to me that Ivy League schools suffer from poor coaching and recruiting. I'd really have to look at some numbers to have a more informed opinion about though. It could very well be they're coaching up poor/less talented recruits. Or they're getting good recruits that manage with their own abilities and desire with poor coaching. I really don't know enough about IvyLg football.